New PREDICT publications

Congratulations to the following PREDICT authors:

Bourke E, Douglas N, Nehme Z, Knott J, Craig SS, Babl FE, the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT) research network. Qualitative exploration of health care professionals’ experiences caring for young people with acute severe behaviorial disturbance in the acute care setting. JACEP Open. 2025. 6:100030. 

John-White MR, Proper E, Muscara F, Babl FE, Anderson VA, Wilson CL, Borland ML, Tonge BJ, Gray KM, Melvin GA, Kochar A, Borschmann R, Haslam R, Tavender EJ, Gordon MS, Dalziel SR, Smith K, Craig SS; Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT) Network. Research themes and key data points for child and adolescent emergency department mental health presentations: A national Delphi study. Acad Emerg Med. 2024 Dec 2. doi: 10.1111/acem.15056. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39618244. 

Bourke EM, Say DF, Carison A, O’Donnell SM, Babl FE; Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT) research network. Emergency department mental health presentations in young children: a retrospective chart review. J Paediatr Child Health. 2024 Sep;60(9):415-421. doi: 10.1111/jpc.16600. Epub 2024 Jun 21. PMID: 39699004.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Newly elected executive team for 2025

To all of our members we hope you had a relaxing break over Christmas and New Year and are ready for plenty of research action in 2025.  

Our new elected executive team is as follows:

Chair – Prof Simon Craig 
Co-Vice Chair – A/Prof Shane George 
Co-Vice Chair – Dr Libby Haskell 
Dr Sharon O’Brien
Dr Natalie Phillips
Dr Mark Lyttle
Dr Elyssia Bourke
Ms Amanda Williams

Co-opted members:
Past Chair – Prof Meredith Borland 
A/Prof Emma Tavender
Ms Cate Wilson
Prof Franz Babl 
Prof Stuart Dalziel

The successful nominees for the Research Assistant and Research Higher Degree PREDICT executive positions for 2025/26 are as follows:

2025 – RA – Megan Duck, Royal Darwin and Palmerston Hospital, NT

2025 – RHD – Lauren Thurlow, Royal Hobart Hospital, TAS – PhD student (UTAS), focusing on quality improvement within Tasmanian emergency departments.

2026 – RA – Gaby Nieva, Women’s and Children’s Hospital, SA

2026 – RHD – Leah Armit, Flinders Medical Centre, SA – Master of Clinical Health and Research in 2025, (Flinders Uni), asthma research

 

PREDICT PRIZE WINNERS AT ACEM ASM 2024

Congratulations to Shannon Trenwith, winner of the ‘PREDICT prize’ at ACEM ASM for the best oral presentation by a trainee/student that addresses an important topic in Paediatric Emergency Medicine. The award winning presentation was on, “Paediatric ketone measurement and intervention in non-diabetic patients in Australasian Emergency Departments: A PREDICT clinician survey.”

Congratulations also to Elyssia Bourke, winner of the ‘Best presentation by a fellow’ prize at ACEM ASM in relation to her talk on “The PEAChY RCT (Pharmacological Emergency management of Agitation in Children and Young People – a trial of Oral medication). 

PREDICT MEMBERS MEETING 2024

The annual PREDICT members meeting was held on 30th October and 1st November 2024 with 60 people attending in person at the Gold Coast University Hospital in Southport.  Another 23-30 members joined online at various stages of the meeting.  Dinner was held at Xenia Greek Restaurant with 46 members eating and drinking the night away.  

The meeting included a range of informative presentations from the project leads covering projects now analysed, those in development and those that are currently active.  It was also a great opportunity to hear ideas for new research projects and to thrash these out with the membership. Great job by Simon, Bronwyn and Shane for chairing the research priority setting sessions which got the audience engaged and involved in the meeting.

We celebrated the 20th anniversary of PREDICT and enjoyed hearing reflections from past chairs.  Each past chair was also presented with a commemorative plaque to mark the occasion.

We thank everyone who was involved (presenters, chairs, moderators and audience) and hope you enjoyed it.   

We look forward to another exciting year of collaborative research and another meeting in 2025! 

Our attentive audience.
Naomi presents a session on febrile convulsions.
   
Charmaine presenting the CASPAR asthma prospective study.
One of Simon’s many presentations. This one on the mental health prospective study.
Dinner!
Stuart with his 20th Anniversary commemorative award.
   

 

         

 

   
   

 

 

WEI HAO LEE IN STARRING ROLE

Wei Hao Lee has starred in the latest SGEM (The Skeptics Guide to EM) episode discussing with Ken Milne and Dennis Ren his first paper “Study of Pediatric Appendicitis Scores and Management Strategies: A Prospective Observational Feasibility Study” which has just been published in Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM).  Congratulations Wei Hao.

SGEM#461: If You’re Appy and You Know It…Do You Need a Clinical Prediction Score? – The Skeptics Guide to Emergency Medicine

WRAP IT UP 2024 – PREDICT’S 20TH ANNIVERSARY

The end of 2024 is upon us as we wrap up another action packed year of research – the 20th anniversary for PREDICT!

It was the fifth year of our current 2020-2024 NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence (CRE) collaboration. Our new CRE grant commenced on 1/11/2024 and will support our program of emergency research in the years to come.

Please join us to reflect on these and other outstanding achievements:

  • PREDICT now has 260 members – in the past year we welcomed 51 new members.
  • 58 hospitals across Australia and New Zealand have been actively involved in PREDICT research and we will soon expand further to include many more regional and rural hospitals involved in our Regional and Rural Translation project (RART-Bronch).
  • PREDICT has continued working actively with consumers in our research. This has included the mental health Delphi project, the PEACHY-O and M studies, the mental health prospective observational study, developing discharge materials for children with mild head injury/concussion, and the upcoming nasogastric tube insertion study. Consumers have also made important contributions to grant applications related to sepsis, steroids in pre-school wheeze, recognition of clinical deterioration, asthma, acute limp, and development of Patient Reported Outcome Measures for community acquired pneumonia and sepsis. We are nearing the end of a project seeking consumer input into priorities for future Paediatric Emergency Medicine research.
  • This year we have had four successful grants from NHMRC, Queensland Health and the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation – to the value of $3.15M
  • We continue our work on translating best practice in bronchiolitis care. We have looked at the sustainability of change to determine if improvements in bronchiolitis management were sustained at intervention hospitals two-years following the KT bronchiolitis trial. Publications from this trial have recently been submitted.
    Work to update the Australasian Bronchiolitis Guideline from 2016 is almost complete.  External groups are currently being consulted so that the finalised guideline will be ready in early 2025.
  • Currently, a significant number of large multicentre studies are ongoing in Australia and New Zealand, while others also involve international sites. These include SONIC (Study Of Neck Injury imaging in Children) also involving Singapore; CHOICE UTI (an RCT comparing a single IV dose of antibiotics to 3 days of IV antibiotics in children with complicated UTI);  PEAChY-M (RCT comparing droperidol and olanzapine for children with behavioural disturbance requiring IM sedation; PROMPT Bolus (an RCT comparing balanced vs normal saline fluid bolus for resuscitation in children with suspected septic shock; FEBCON (a stepped wedge trial of usual care vs regular antipyretics for children presenting with a FEBrile CONvulsion to the Emergency Department), SPASMS (observational Study of Paediatric Appendicitis Scores and Management Strategies) and the Australian and New Zealand ED Airway Registry (ANZEDAR).
  • New studies that commenced recruiting this year were: the MH Prospective study and the FEBCon study.
  • Our committed teams undertaking Cochrane reviews have completed the review of  cervical spine injury and continues working on ED management of acute severe behavioural disturbance. The protocol is now published and data extraction is underway.
  • Data analysis is complete and papers are underway for the Bronchiolitis Sustainability study, Kids-THRIVE, PEACHY-O, SENTINEL, Mental Health Retrospective study, Major Haemorrhage Protocol review and the ANZ ED Airway registry.
  • The PREDICT Executive reviewed and endorsed 6 new projects, many of which are now in various stages of development.
  • We are mentoring 7 PhD scholars and congratulate – Simon Craig (Monash) who completed his PhD studies this year whilst juggling numerous other activities!
  • Our work has been presented at national and international meetings, including APLS PAC, AFCEM (Gabarone, Botswana), EMCON (Chennai, India), NAPEM (Bangalore, India), ICEM (Taiwan), EUSEM (Copenhagen, Denmark), PAS (Toronto, Canada), ACTA (Melbourne, Australia) and at ACEM ASM (Adelaide, Australia).
  • Fourteen papers were published in various journals including: ACTA Paediatrica; Paediatric Neurology; BMJ Open; Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health; Archives of Disease in Children; Emergency Medicine Australasia; Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and others!
  • We continue to undertake work collaboratively with the international PERN Pediatric Emergency Research Network) group on the PERN Asthma study (a global multicenter, retrospective Study). With PERC we continue to recruit in the BIPED study (Dexamethasone and Adrenaline for bronchiolitis) and our other international studies include the PROMPT Bolus Study (with PECARN (US) and PERC (Canada).
  • Our online research education sessions commenced this year and covered a range of topics.  These included: Research Design 1 & 2; Grants, Budgets & Contracts; Consumer Involvement; Getting your study up and running, Role of the Principal Investigator; Setting up your research dept/team and HREC applications and Central filing. These are available online, (https://www.predict.org.au/education-sessions/) and have been shared with our PERN colleagues for translation and wider distribution. New sessions will be available next year.
  • PREDICT has supported the development of research networks outside Australia and NZ, with contribution to workshops and planning for a PEM research network in India, and coordinating a PEM network development workshop in Botswana as part of the African Conference on Emergency Medicine.
  • The annual PREDICT members meeting was held in November at the Gold Coast University Hospital in Queensland with a live and online audience of 85 members.  It was a great opportunity to catch up on progress, talk with other members, and to develop some new priorities for research.

Thank you to all members and collaborators for your contributions and support.

PREDICT OUTREACH TO AFRICA

African Conference on Emergency Medicine: Building Paediatric Emergency Medicine Research Capacity in Africa

Workshop presentation – 5 November 2024

Participants from eight countries attended this workshop attached to the African Conference on Emergency Medicine in Gabarone, Botswana.

Faculty in this workshop from PREDICT included Franz Babl and Sandy Hopper, from REPEM in Europe Kristina Keitel, and from the PEM CRC network in the US Kemi Badaki-Makun. It followed the model of similar workshops in India led by PREDICT.

Following several didactic sessions about the purpose and mechanics of establishing a paediatric emergency research network and examples of existing networks we conducted a prioritisation exercise where participants were asked to nominate research priorities which were refined in subsequent discussions. It included topics around sepsis, implementation of existing international guidelines, several topics around critical illness (e.g. malaria, respiratory infections, POCUS) and prehospital care. There was a lively discussion about next steps, the challenges of countries/health systems and emergency medicine at different stages of development, the delineation vs other specialties and whether to aim for a pan-African network or more regional networks.

 

New PREDICT publications

Congratulations to the following PREDICT authors:

Phillips N, Eapen N, Wilson CL, Nehme Z, Babl FE. Prehospital use of spinal precautions by emergency medical services in children and adolescents. Emerg Med Australas. 2024 Oct 4. doi: 10.1111/1742-6723.14499. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39363781.

O’Brien S, Wilson C, Duck M, Nieva G, Rao MP, Haskell L. Review article: A primer for clinical researchers in the emergency department: Part XIII. Strategies to engage staff and enhance participant recruitment in emergency department research. Emerg Med Australas. 2024 Sep 26. doi: 10.1111/1742-6723.14505. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39327712.

 

 

 

 

Getting to know you – Momoko Combs

Our “Getting to Know You” segment ensures PREDICT members are aware of new members, their interests and areas of expertise and where they are located.

This month we introduce Momoko Combs from Queensland Children’s Hospital.

“I am currently completing my RACP PEM training at Queensland Children’s Hospital ED with a fellowship year, however home is Perth, WA where I shall be returning soon. I am passionate about supporting the PREDICT network within the departments I work in, and as I progress through my career hope to have more active involvement.” 

Welcome to PREDICT Momoko.

 

Getting to know you – Jessica Nooney

Our “Getting to Know You” segment ensures PREDICT members are aware of new members, their interests and areas of expertise and where they are located.

This month we introduce Jessica Nooney from Monash Health.

“I am a critical care nurse with a PhD in patient safety. I am currently working as a Research Fellow; Department of Paediatrics Monash Health, School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Faculty of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences. Research Interests: My research interests focus on recognising and responding to clinical deterioration, emphasising the importance of listening to patient and family concerns. I believe that enhancing effective communication through collaboration with consumers can enhance early detection and intervention of deterioration, ultimately improving patient outcomes.”

Welcome to PREDICT Jessica.